Shingo Model

Where Principle-Driven Culture Meets Agile Excellence

"The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize." 1

Shigeo Shingo
Shingo Model

The Shingo Model is a framework for organizational excellence that emphasizes culture as the ultimate engine of sustainable performance. Developed by the Shingo Institute and inspired by the work of Shigeo Shingo, a pioneer of Lean and the Toyota Production System, the model teaches that tools and results alone do not create excellence. What matters most is the behavior of people, especially leaders, driven by principles and supported by aligned systems.

The model is best known through its pyramid framework, where Cultural Enablers form the base, Continuous Improvement and Enterprise Alignment make up the core, and Results are the natural outcome at the top. However, the real heart of the model lies in its Three Insights of Organizational Excellence and Ten Guiding Principles, which provide a consistent moral and operational compass. For Agile teams and leaders, these insights offer a deeply compatible way to think about learning, experimentation, respect, and purpose.

The Three Insights of Organizational Excellence

  1. Ideal Results Require Ideal Behavior

    2. Sustainable outcomes come from the consistent practice of behaviors aligned with universal principles.

  2. Purpose and Systems Drive Behavior

    3. To change behavior, one must look beyond individual intention and understand how systems and purpose shape what people do.

  3. Principles Inform Ideal Behavior

    4. Principles are timeless truths that guide our decisions and actions in ways that create trust, learning, and flow.

The Ten Guiding Principles:

Grouped by the four dimensions of the Shingo Pyramid, these principles offer guidance for shaping culture and reinforcing ideal behaviors:

  1. Cultural Enablers:
    • Respect Every Individual: Create an environment where each person is valued and empowered.
    • Lead with Humility: Accept that leaders do not have all the answers. Create space for others to contribute and challenge assumptions.
  2. Continuous Improvement:
    • Seek Perfection: Strive for better outcomes through experimentation, not unrealistic standards.
    • Embrace Scientific Thinking: Use hypothesis-based problem solving and feedback loops.
    • Focus on Process: Recognize that most issues stem from processes, not people.
    • Assure Quality at the Source: Prevent defects by designing quality into the work itself.
    • Improve Flow and Pull: Optimize systems for smooth, responsive delivery.
  3. Enterprise Alignment:
    • Think Systemically: Understand the interdependencies and effects of local decisions on the broader system.
    • Create Constancy of Purpose: Align everyone around a shared vision that goes beyond short-term performance.
  4. Results:
    • Create Value for the Customer: Let customer impact, not internal efficiency, be the true measure of success.

Impact on Agile Teams & Organizations

The Shingo Model gives Agile organizations a way to translate values into behaviors and systems. It ensures that Agile is not reduced to a checklist but practiced as a cultural evolution.

  1. Cultural Enablers:
    • Create space for experimentation and failure without fear.
    • Promote respectful dissent and honest dialogue in retrospectives and reviews.
  2. Continuous Improvement:
    • Reinforce flow-based thinking in Kanban systems or sprint planning.
      • Use scientific thinking to validate backlog hypotheses.
    • Build quality into Definition of Done and cross-functional practices.
  3. Enterprise Alignment:
    • Align OKRs or PI objectives to constancy of purpose.
      • Replace vanity metrics with outcome-focused measures.
    • Build quality into Definition of Done and cross-functional practices.
  4. Results:
    • Treat customer satisfaction as a reflection of principle adherence, not just deliverables.

Scenario:

An organization practicing Scrum across departments notices that despite following all prescribed events, team engagement is low, improvement ideas rarely stick, and leaders default to top-down pressure near deadlines.

The introduction of the Shingo Model begins with a leadership workshop centered on the Three Insights.

Over the next quarter:

  • Retrospectives shift from minor adjustments to reflective inquiries tied to the Ten Principles.
  • Leaders begin demonstrating humility and shifting accountability to team-owned systems.
  • A product team restructures its intake flow to focus on customer-defined value, not project deadlines.

Behavior slowly shifts, not because of mandates, but because principles begin shaping the culture. Systems are adjusted to support rather than contradict these principles, and engagement improves alongside outcomes.

Ways to Mitigate Misalignment:

Agile often falters when systems and behaviors do not reflect the values being taught. The Shingo Model offers a layered approach to diagnosing and correcting these contradictions.

  1. Internalize the Three Insights:
    • Train leadership to explore how behavior is shaped by systems.
    • Begin improvement with purpose, not processes.
  2. Embed the Guiding Principles:
    • Link Agile practices to specific Shingo principles.
      • Example: "Embrace scientific thinking" maps to Agile spikes and A/B testing.
    • Use principles as discussion anchors in team charters and ceremonies.
  3. Align Organizational Systems:
    • Audit performance, finance, and HR structures for behavior-shaping effects.
    • Remove incentives that reward heroics or local optimization over flow and learning.
  4. Lead with Visible Consistency:
    • Equip leaders to model humility, respect, and systemic awareness.
    • Use the Shingo Pyramid as a coaching framework during planning and review sessions.
Conclusion:

The Shingo Model reveals that excellence is less about methodology and more about alignment. It reminds us that Agile is not a silver bullet but a set of behaviors informed by values and shaped by systems. Through the Three Insights and Ten Guiding Principles, the model helps teams build a culture where improvement is not an event but a way of working. For Agile practitioners, the Shingo Model offers language, structure, and clarity to elevate transformation from tactics to meaning.

Key Takeaways

  • The Shingo Model was developed to sustain operational excellence through culture, not just results.
  • It includes a pyramid structure and is guided by Three Insights and Ten Principles.
  • Agile teams benefit from explicitly aligning ceremonies, metrics, and decisions to Shingo Principles.
  • Ideal results come from systems that promote ideal behavior, especially among leaders.
  • Sustainable change requires designing culture, not enforcing compliance.

Summary

The Shingo Model provides Agile leaders and teams with a principled pathway to excellence. It emphasizes the importance of behavior shaped by purpose-driven systems and sustained through shared cultural principles. By internalizing the Three Insights and practicing the Ten Guiding Principles, Agile organizations can move from surface-level adoption to deep, systemic transformation. The model strengthens Agile by grounding it in values that endure beyond frameworks, tools, or trends.